The sport with the fly is a popular one these days. I long for the times when a chance meeting with fellow fly fisherman on beauty’s banks was met with celebration – a chance to exchange a story or two and, if lucky, to pawn a homemade fly in exchange for a complimentary word about its craftsmanship and allure. But these days, nearly all my lucky spots are overrun with impatient fishermen, scurrying from hole to hole, who have nary a minute to exchange a word or two. At best you’ll get a sideways glance as they throw treble hook up and down. Even those with the fly seem accustomed to using the elbow as a modern fly fisherman’s version of a can opener. 

But there is still a place, filled with big browns, rainbows and brookies, where I can fish and my only company is the aquatic type – a creek, where nature has placed branches and parts of dead trees and guarded its child with high banks of overhanging grass. The clear water and sand bottom give the appearance of sterility. But the big trout love it and the modern day trout fisherman finds it impossible to throw a spinner or perform a textbook back cast. Even the wormers can’t get close enough to the undercut banks to drop their bait and follow its path downstream. Only the very patient know the methods to fish the most difficult creek, and those who do will be honored with a match game against the smartest trout on earth. 

High noon and mostly sunny, I work my way cross-country through a marsh foregoing the easiest and only path formed by the impatient fishermen before me. The trout have patterned the fishermen and the high alarm sounds when that path next to the bank is walked. Footsteps are the jungle drums of the trout tribe. Tens years have passed since I have been here, so my memory serves as compass. It is little help because of the new vegetation. A decade of wood growth can make a world of difference. I only hope the stream hasn’t evaporated because it was never more than five feet from bank to bank. Many a creek has disappeared in the North Country because of mans’ relentless cabin and road building. With anticipation, I make my way wielding my 7-foot 3-weight like a delicate machete through high grass and thick brush. My only companions, deer flies and mosquitoes, walk with me. The humid air is filled with the aroma of decaying vegetation and swamp gas.

The Eastern Meadow Lark gives me my first clue that I am on the right course. Strangely absent in numbers found here twenty years ago, he is another reminder of how our human progress has made the wetlands endangered. A Belted Kingfisher, perched high in a root-rotted poplar, tells me the creek is no more than fifty yards away. If Kingfishers are present, so are the fish! They will eat chubs but much prefer a little brookie. My heart beats rapidly with anticipation. Later, I will worry about finding my way out of here.

Slowly and silently I approach stream’s edge, crouching in the tall prairie grass and ducking under dogwood-clumped branches. The bank is a full five feet above the stream and, as expected, runs gin-clear and cold. I plan my strategy as I park my sweaty self, reach for a refreshment in my pack and listen to the birds. I delight in hearing a slurp and seeing the telltale ring of the feeding trout. To me, this time – my time, holds the most cherished outdoor memories. The world is placed into proper perspective and all things in life have the clarity of the stream of which I watch below.

Gently, I  unroll a new leader out of my vest and tie line to it. My choice is a 7.5-foot 5X and I decide to tie a clear chunk of 2.9 lb. tippet material to it. Another slurp in the bend upstream hastens me to tie a #18 Adams to this affair. I am a true believer in “matching the hatch”, but the fisherman knows full well that, most of the time, no particular bug is present in numbers so prevalent that they can be considered a “hatch”. I follow my instincts and select a fly that looks to my eye as if it naturally fits the size of water and type of creek bottom. Unless I can see a bug floating on the water or in it, I usually start with a general-purpose fly. The Adams looks like just about everything including a mosquito, so many times I’ll try it first before anything else.

Easing into the water, I position directly in midstream to face up-current. A straight portion of the five-foot wide stream, lined with boulders on each side, is in front of me. A deep cut bank downstream and behind me is flushed with a sand cloud as I make my way into position. The most delicate step produces a billow of disturbance downstream and that is too bad. There is no other way to fish this boy than to get in the water and work upstream. The trick is to do it very, very slowly. I will work a thirty-foot section at a time and not move for thirty minutes!

I begin to whip cast this delicate affair no more than a rods length in front of me, careful to avoid splashing the water with line. I am fishing merely the leader and my tippet. There is never more than two feet of fly line out of my rod – just enough to allow the leader and tippet to do the work. In three casts, I am rewarded with a surprising attack by a large fish. He rolls on my fly but doesn’t take it! Quickly repeating the presentation, he attacks again. Still, he is only window-shopping. A third presentation and this time he rolls on it like a dog on a dead carp. I present a fourth and fifth, but he will do nothing now. 

The Redwing Blackbirds chatter among themselves as they watch my feeble attempt to lure Mr. Big. As the audience watches, I realize my mistake. I was duped by modern marketing messages into believing I needed floatant applied to my fly. Once a big trout has a taste of that goop, he will not go back for seconds. To any skeptic of this theory, I invite a taste himself.  Quickly, I attempt to rectify my mistake and tie on a fresh #18 Adams. I know the trout wanted it; he tried it three times! I will give him ten minutes before I cast again. My hope is that he will forget.

Again I present the fly. But he will not budge. I am forced to move slowly ahead another five feet – three, four and five casts. The sixth is the charm. Another large fish rolls on my fly and quickly retreats at light speed upstream. This time I see it was a big Brown – at least twenty inches! The routine continues until a little brookie feels it is safe to rob his big cousin of the treat. The brookie is ten inches and fat, but he goes back into the water. I am hunting Browns today.

After three hours, I have gone around two bends of the meandering creek. I will cut across the marsh once more to give the big guy another chance. Before repeating my stealthy approach of three hours earlier, I again take refreshment of now warm barley hops and ponder my last chance before calling it quits. No mistakes this time. I will position in the stream and cast ahead with a #18 Female Adams. The Female Adams has the addition of a yellow egg sack tied in back. I doubt the trout know it’s an egg sack, but I think they like the yellow. It is stylish and trout like style if nothing else. They may also give extra credit to the fisherman considerate enough to think in this detail.

But as I approach my spot, I see a fellow fly fisherman has jumped my claim. We greet with the age-old, proverbial “How’s the fishing?” He begins to explain to me that he has had trout roll on his fly all day and has caught a few twelve-inch Browns. But the engaging story is that he just lost the biggest fish he has ever had on. The massive trout slurped his fly and immediately ran upstream. No sooner had it taken out twenty-feet of line, than it button-hooked and ran past him downstream. Unprepared for such trickery, he lost track of his line and the trout broke him off at the 10-lb. portion of the tapered leader! “I think it may have been a 30-incher,” he stammered. 

We spend time on bank to take refreshment, exchange stories and pawn a few flies. The trout slurped, the blackbirds cackled and the fishermen laughed.

Everything – just like it is supposed to be.